The One Where Olivia is Bored
by kerithwyn
Summary: It's a quiet day at Fringe Division.


The One Where Olivia is Bored

Fandom: Fringe

Characters: Olivia Dunham/Alternate Lincoln Lee/Alternate Charlie Francis

Rating: Mature

Wordcount: ~1,700

Summary: It's a quiet day at Fringe Division.

Spoilers: Early season 3. Takes place Over There between "The Plateau" and "Amber 31422."

Thanks to monanotlisa for excellent kibbitz, and samjohnsson for likewise beta.

Written for the a Fringe Secret Santa 2011, for ceitie. Inspiration from her prompt: _Fic set during Season 3...exploring some aspect of the Other Side. If you want to write pairings, I'd love to read some fun Alt'Olivia/Alt'Lincoln/Alt'Charlie. _

During this performance, the part of Red!Olivia Dunham will be played (albeit unsuspectingly) by Blue!Olivia Dunham.

* * *

><p>Olivia never knows what to do with herself while Frank's away.<p>

Well. As far as _that_ goes, that's what fingers and toys and detachable variable-pulse showerheads are for. But she can't stay home and play "hello, kitty" all the time.

She also can't hook up with the guys, not that way; it's against the rules. Or at least against The One Rule, like it's a magical artifact from that movie Lincoln likes with the midgets. ("_Hobbits!_" she can hear him protest in that wounded tone of voice.) The One Rule, never stated but always obeyed, is that she and Charlie and Lincoln only sleep together the night after the conclusion of a Fringe mission.

Frank knows, of course, but he never asks. Olivia does her best not to rub it in his face, showering off their combined sweat before she goes home. She doesn't ask what he gets up to, either, when he's stuck for months in a hot zone. This is their unspoken agreement, and it suits them both perfectly.

Olivia looks at them, her guys: Lincoln sprawling against the desk, Charlie leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up. Across the room, Farnsworth is pouring over her screens and Broyles is in his office and all is right with the world, for the moment.

She can only say "I'm fine" so many times, and it's mainly true. Physically, she's ready to go. Mentally...everything seems to be in place barring the occasional glitch, like the hallucination...vision..._whatever_ that keeps showing up out of the corner of her eye, some guy she doesn't recognize. Brain injury has unpredictable effects, the docs keep telling her, and she's choosing to believe them, because the alternative is unacceptable.

But Olivia's found that since getting out of the psych ward she wants to spend more time with her guys, and not just in the bedroom.

She keeps getting this odd...thrill whenever she catches sight of Charlie for the first time every day, like seeing him is somehow unexpected and wonderful. That's the last thing she'd ever tell him, of course. It feels kind of like the same weird impulse that has Olivia talking to her mother more often, like every conversation is a gift. She's more _aware_ of Charlie's presence these days, and all she can figure is that nearly losing him to her own malfunctioning brain has made her appreciate him even more.

It's even weirder with Lincoln. She knows him, trusts his judgment, relies on his expertise in the field. He's got the specific technical training that she and Charlie lack and frankly, they couldn't function as a team without his lightness to counterbalance them both. Olivia is as comfortable with him as she's ever been, except for a handful of odd moments, like two days ago when they were racing down I-95 toward the latest event and she looked over and-just for a second-had no clue who the hot guy in the passenger seat was. That particular glitch seems to be fading by the hour, though, and she'll be glad to see the end of it entirely.

In other contexts Lincoln also feels like a newly discovered toy, but Liv knows better than to play with him too roughly. Most of the time that's fine.

Other times she wants to bring him home and tie him to the bed and keep him there. Maybe even until Frank gets home so they can share. He's a doctor, he knows what a prostate can do. ...and that's definitely fantasy fodder to save for her next long shower, but no more than that. That part of their arrangement ends at the apartment door and neither of them wants it any other way.

The point is, it's about more than the sex with Lincoln and Charlie. When it's a rare slow stretch at division and Frank's not home, the three of them always end up having the same conversation about what to do after work, that weekend, on their days off.

"We can go back to Coney Island this weekend. Charlie can throw up on you this time."

Lincoln scrunches his nose. "Pass."

Olivia thinks about suggesting they wander around the mall, but that always winds up the same: watching Lincoln geek out at The Sharper Picture and not-listening to Charlie bitch about "the old days" as if he was thirty years older than her, when he's not even ten.

"There's a new show at the planetarium," Lincoln says, and Charlie and Liv immediately exchange identical _how did we get saddled with this nerd_ expressions. Lincoln frowns at them. "C'mon, guys, it's science! This is relevant to your interests."

"SCIENCE!" Liv and Charlie both exclaim in their best Dolby voices, and that's the end of that suggestion. It's a little unfair; Olivia does, actually, spend a lot of her down time reviewing the latest journals and articles and reports from other Fringe teams. She's not gonna let herself or anyone else get eaten by a Fringe event if she can help it. She's even started rereading _ZFT_, slowly and carefully trying to parse the truth behind Secretary Bishop's clever veneer of lies. The science is very relevant to her interest in survival.

But Lincoln's pouty expression is too precious to relent.

"Anything new at the movies?" she asks, but a quick check determines they've seen everything recent of any interest, and all the old shows multiple times. New film production has slowed to a crawl as more and more people have become afraid to leave their houses. As if a vortex didn't have an equal chance to spontaneously materialize in a theater or a kitchen.

"Bar," Charlie says, and Liv shakes her head.

"Don't love sitting around watching you two get plastered while the bartender glares at me for drinking club soda all night."

Lincoln shrugs off his disappointment to put in his bid. "But you get to kick our asses at darts."

"That'd be more fun if you wimps would put some money on it," she throws back.

"Not a chance. Already lose too much at the Thursday poker game." Charlie pauses. "...you guys ever wonder if maybe we spend too much time together?"

They all three look at each other solemnly, and then break up laughing. If not them, who?

Olivia could always call up some girlfriends, sure, head over to the strip club to watch the pretty gay boys (and the ones who are only faking it for tips) grind against each other. She sometimes thinks it'd be fun to take Lincoln along but A) she's not sure he could resist launching himself up on stage and B) she's not sure she'd try to stop him.

The truth is Olivia's finding it harder and harder to relate to anyone who doesn't work for the division, or who at least (like Frank) knows what's really going on in the world. She can't really blame ordinary people for not wanting to recognize the full horror of their situation, but at the same time, their lack of knowledge combined with her impatience with trivial mundane crap limits potential topics of conversation.

"Maybe we need a new hobby," she muses, and both Lincoln and Charlie look at her with something approaching horror. They're wishing for a nice little class 2 vortex right about now, she bets. So is she, because that would at least count toward satisfying Rule One.

And it's not like they don't already have hobbies. She and Lincoln are feared combatants in the division soccer team; Charlie had opted out, claiming it interfered with his Little League coaching. A blatant lie, since he shows up at all of their matches. Lincoln and Olivia return the favor for his team's games, sitting in the stands and heckling Charlie (but not the kids) for every call. He's awesome with the rugrats, and Liv and Lincoln are in absolute agreement that he'd make a kick-ass dad. Sure, the usual way doesn't seem likely considering the bugs in his blood, but Fringe Division collects all kinds of genetic material from its agents. They've got her eggs frozen and squirreled away somewhere, so odds are they're got Charlie's pre-infection swimmers too. He can grumble all he wants, but the option's there if he wants to take it.

(She's never told Frank this, and she's _especially_ never told Lincoln and his motor-mouth, but if Charlie ever starts talking about wanting to be a father and he hasn't found the right person to do it with, Olivia's going to offer her eggs for insemination. She probably can't carry a baby, considering the way VPE spreads through families, but her base genetic material should test clean.)

"Last time you said that, you suggested skydiving lessons." Charlie leans forward, face intent. "Let me reiterate my previous response: Hell. No."

"I'm with him on this one, Liv," Lincoln drawls, which is just revenge for them ganging up on him about the planetarium. This is how it always goes with them, two against one, with constantly shifting alliances. But in the end they all wind up in the same place and God, she loves them both.

"What about," she starts, and then all the wall screens flash with amber light and data starts scrolling across their pads at a rapid clip. Colonel Broyles comes charging out of his office like he's been shot by a catapult.

"Wake up, people! We've got a possible class 4 incursion in Bangor."

Class 4, definitely enough to get the heart pounding. A class 4 event had nearly killed Lincoln, Liv's first month on the job, before she knew better than to dive in and yank him out. Olivia got chewed out for such a rookie move but she secretly swore that she'd never know better, if it meant she could save one of her partners.

And it's- it's definitely _wrong_ to have a different kind of Pavlovian response to a world-destroying eruption of chaos, especially when there's gonna be property damage and people are probably gonna die, but Olivia just can't help it. Stupid sexy partners and their stupid sexy everything.

But now it's time to get her game face on. The room's exploded into activity, Broyles shouting orders and Farnsworth calling back details as fast as she can wrangle them. The three of them look at each other, too many emotions flashing between them to name, before their faces all settle into appropriate expressions of resolve. They'll go and they'll save as many people as they can and they'll fight to keep what remains whole and stable and sane. The world isn't going to end today, not on their watch.

Give the chaos its due: Liv's definitely not bored any more.

{end}


End file.
